Saturday, February 24, 2007

Sitting in a basement in Salt Lake City. I’m cross-legged on a green carpeted floor that I know pretty well, wrapped in my sleeping bag, flirting with sleep. We’re back in it again. I awoke early on my friend’s couch this morning in The Mission and found myself hours later passing the spewing refineries of the north bay area. The day was clear beneath clouds that floated above us like lily pads on a stagnant pond. We crossed the bay at the mouth of the delta and pushed through Sacramento, climbed up and over Donner Pass. We lunched in Reno at a deli that shares its parking lot with a classy strip club.

It was hot for February - I know that stretch of highway that runs along Donner Lake like a reoccurring dream, but it appeared out of character, nearly snowless. The colors were all wrong, it looked like a late May or early November palate…

The thin film of sleep stayed tightly wrapped around me all day. I’m getting reacquainted with the feeling of our tour van, but we all seemed to slip right back into old routine – all those weeks I just spent in New York are blurry, thrown somewhere in storage in my brain. What’s clear to me now is that vast sky that stretches over the whole middle of this country. It opened above us as we followed the river through Nevada. Nevada is nothing but stretches of land and sky, brittle towns with names like Elko, Lovelock, and Winnemucca, lonely decaying buildings. The mountains rise to the sky on either side of the highway and there are casinos at truck stops – we play the slots as we gas up.

Though the routine is settling upon us again, there is still a nervous excitement and electricity in the van. The touring season has just begun and we aim to be booked strait through it. We’re blessed to be opening for artists that we like and listen to, to have friends to put us up in each city along the way.

Our first show of the year was Monday opening up for Ben Kweller in San Francisco. There was a tension that got released on that stage. It was oddly comfortable after so much time away. That comfort in turn got me nervous. Kweller is a great performer and seems to write whatever sort of song he is feeling like writing. His people meshed well with our people too. That night was just satisfying, nothing out of the ordinary good or bad.